Livestock Production
Livestock production can be lucrative, yet demanding. Whether you're raising animals for pleasure, for profit, for subsistence or for preservation of heritage breeds, you'll need to deal with feed, housing, fencing, medical care, waste management, water management, pests and predators. Any one of those can make this job so much harder than it already is. Thankfully, there are a lot of good resources, good strategies and best practices to make livestock management not only successful, but enjoyable. This section of the website will present as much information as possible on all these topics.
Any given operation might have one or more species of livestock, each with their own requirements. We'll cover them all separately, with as much detail as possible. Click on the below links to visit each section.
- Cows
- Draft Horses
- Goats
- Sheep
- Hogs
- Camelids (Llamas, alpacas and vicunas)
- Rabbits
- Waterfowl
- Poultry
- Farm Cats
- Livestock Guardian Dogs
If you are interested in any of the above topics and they don't yet lead to a section on that animal, it simply means we haven't moved that section over yet from the other website. We're bringing information over as quickly as possible but it's a slow process. Please check back soon, or send us a note if you're interested in a particular topic.
Our Successful Farm and Ranching Books
We released our very first self-published book, The Chicken Coop Manual, in 2014. It is a full color guide to conventional and alternative poultry housing options, including 8 conventional stud construction plans, 12 alternative housing methods, and almost 20 different design features. This book is available on Amazon.com and as a PDF download. Please visit our sister website's The Chicken Coop Manual page for more information.
Rabbit Colonies: Lessons Learned
We started with rabbits in 2002, and we've been experimenting with colony management ever since. Fast forward to 2017 when I decided to write another book, this time about colony management. Rabbit Colonies: Lessons Learned is chock-full of practical information, and is available from both Amazon and as a PDF download. Please visit our sister website's Rabbit Colonies page for more information.
The Pastured Pig Handbook
We are currently working on our next self-published book: The Pastured Pig Handbook. This particular book addresses a profitable, popular and successful hog management approach which sadly is not yet well documented. Our handbook, will cover all the various issues involved with pastured hog management, including case studies of numerous current pastured pig operations. If you have any questions about this book, please Contact Us.